The Course of Its Desires
by Helene Gaspard
Summary: This wasn't the way the government usually handled these things, but it was the only way. When outsmarting a genius, the simplest way is often the best way, isn't it? And, well, collateral damage never mattered much anyway, except to those in the line of fire. Mostly Greeneday, with a hint of Cordano (friendship) thrown in. Rated T for later chapters.
1. Sometimes Flies

_A/N: As you may have gathered, this is my first ER fanfiction. Basically my thought process behind this story is THE ENDING OF SEASON EIGHT IS A LIE IT'S ALL A LIE NOPITY NOPE NOPE NOPE -_

_Ahem. Sorry not sorry._

_To those of you who followed me over, don't worry; I'm still working on Seven Reasons. This just needs to get out there as my biggest fan-based writing project at the moment. Thank you for reading, and please... enjoy the ride. (Shout-outs to various other fandoms will be sprinkled throughout! See if you can catch them all!)_

Dr. Mark Greene of the Chicago County General Hospital did not die of a brain tumour the morning of 9 May 2002, contrary to the certificate of death, the funeral attended by his family and colleagues, and the letter written by his wife to those who cared about him at the aforementioned Chicago County General.

In fact, the fabrication of the regrowth of Dr. Greene's tumour and his subsequent death were a highly successful deception intended to protect those whom he loved.

All of which to say, as Mark Greene was spirited away in the night by two agents calling themselves Smith and Jones, he wanted nothing more than to leap from the dark sedan and run back to Elizabeth, to Rachel, to Ella, so he could hold them all close and tell them it would be alright.

"Sir?" Smith prompted, dark eyebrows quirked expectantly, and Mark buried his face in his hands.

"It has to be like this?" he whispered. "What happens if -?"

Jones shook her head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Greene," she interrupted quietly. "This is the only way we can ensure your safety and that of your family, and we have found that when we extract witnesses this way, they often... don't find it easy to reenter their old lives."

He swallowed weakly. This shouldn't have had to happen. They'd told him that Elizabeth, at least, would be told what was really going on, but she hadn't known. She couldn't have. There was no way she could have known, the way she stared at the wall for an hour after finding him "dead," those brilliant green-grey eyes empty of everything.

_I can't stand to be so dead behind the eyes_, sang a fragment of melody in his head. Mark couldn't remember what song the line was from, but it didn't really matter.

He could never see his wife again. To her, to all of them, Mark Greene was dead. All because he'd had the misfortune to treat the poor bastard who'd only been mostly dead after a run-in with a well-known serial killer - or well-known to the FBI in any case, because when Mark had mentioned the name the dying man kept babbling, the police had informed him he would have to die if he wanted to protect the people he cared about. He couldn't even remember the name of the patient now, but the name of the murderer had been burned into his mind.

And so, he supposed, Mark Greene really had died, thanks to a man he only knew as Christopher Pelant.

Tonight, when Smith and Jones finally stopped the car in Rutland, Vermont, Michael Gregory was the man who would get out with them.

Michael Gregory did not fail as a father to a daughter named Rachel. Michael Gregory had never heard of a woman called Elizabeth Corday. Michael Gregory was a desk clerk who kept to himself and had moved to Vermont only because he thought it would be restful.

And above all, Michael Gregory knew nothing about Christopher Pelant.

._.

"Here we are," Smith said quietly as they pulled up to a nondescript apartment complex. "Welcome to your new home, Mr. Gregory. We've arranged and interview for you next Tuesday at the local hospital. References from previous employees have been supplied. You do know what being a desk clerk entails, right?"

Mark managed a tight smile. "Yeah, I do." The thought crossed his mind that he at least would interview better than poor Cynthia Hooper. "What bank do I use?"

"All your information is inside on the table," Jones told him, pressing the key to Michael Gregory's falt into his hand. "And if you feel you are in any sort of danger, we're listed as 'Mom' in your cell phone. Speed dial three."

They waited until he was inside to return to the car. Smith eyed his partner. "I thought we were going to be the pet shop."

"He doesn't have a pet, Smith." Jones fell silent as they drove away. "Think we did the right thing, leaving his family out like this?"

Smith nodded, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "Pelant's a computer genius and he won't like that one of his victims got away. This way he has no reason to go looking for revenge if he runs another escape routine -"

"- which he won't, " Jones interrupted with a warning glance at him.

"He's done it before; we have to be prepared for any possibility."

Jones shifted her jaw. "And if he decides to go after Greene's family anyway?"

Smith said nothing.

._.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Gregory," greeted the man behind the desk, rising to shake Mark's hand.

"Call me Mike, please," Mark said.

The man's heavy jowls shook as he chuckled. "You got it, Mike. I'm Dr. Julius Kerdet -"

"Corday?" He straightened.

"Kerdet," Julius corrected with a smile. He spelled out his name, and Mark's heart slowed a little more.

_Stop. You won't find her here. _He tried to return the smile and hoped he looked natural. "So, you need a desk clerk?"

"Yes, and I have to say, Mike, your recommendations were fantastic. You have a head for medicine? Our last clerk was always getting the charts mixed up. Good at answering the phones, but it was a hassle finding test results and whatnot."

He nodded. "Yes, I understand the system fairly well." As long as they were never short on doctors, he wouldn't have a chance to slip up and know more than he should. He wasn't an attending physician anymore; he'd be a desk clerk if he got this job.

Julius asked him a few more questions, then thanked him and let him go with a friendly smile. Mark felt a sense of relief at not being asked about his personal history - he didn't know if he could answer anything with a lie, not with his family so present in his mind as they were.

The air was fresh and cool outside, and as the doors slid shut behind him, he shoved his hands into his pockets and wished for the first time in a while that he had a cigarette. If he closed his eyes and breathed in just right, he could imagine this was all a dream and he hadn't spent the past week alone in a house that was far too quiet, and he hadn't found himself brewing a kettle of tea he'd never drink for a woman who wasn't there. Mark tensed when he passed a woman with thick reddish curls, but her face was all wrong, and she wasn't smiling, and when she snapped at someone on the other end of her cell phone her voice was rough and nothing like honey.

Elizabeth was everywhere he looked.

His heart leapt into his throat as the enormity of his situation finally sunk in. He had no photographs of his wife. In ten years he wouldn't recognize Ella if he passed her in the street. He'd never know if he'd done enough to make up for all his mistakes to Rachel.

The thought was staggering, and he had to sit down on a bench outside a little shop.

People walked past him as if he wasn't there. Perhaps, if he waited long enough, he'd wake up.


	2. Sometimes Walks

_A/N: Thank you for the review, bamboo! Your kind words brightened my day! Hopefully this continues to meet your expectations... To other (possible?) readers: It's okay to leave a review telling me if you hate it so I know what to improve! It's more distressing to look at the views and wonder if they were accidental clicks than it is to read even a flaming review. Thank you for your time, and please enjoy!_

**._.**

Quite frankly, Elizabeth was getting tired of the sympathetic looks and hushed queries into her wellbeing. She didn't want pity from any of them; she just wanted to be kept busy enough that she wouldn't have to think.

It was the thinking that was dangerous, being left alone with her suffocating thoughts and wondering if she could drown in her own mind, because it might be preferable to the thinking.

Appendectomy, angioplasty, femoral embolectomy - anything was better than the moments in between when her hands were idle and her mind circled back, a solar system in her head that orbited around the place where Mark was not. Perhaps that was a bad metaphor then, since the lack of him was more of a black hole than a burning sun. It was she who was burning, burning, burning.

"Lizzie," Robert called, striding over to her from a different OR. "Another embolism is on its way up. Want to take a lunch break at last or are you going to pass out from hunger on this one?"

"I'll take it." She turned to go back to the sinks. "I'm not hungry, Robert."

He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Let me rephrase that. You've been here since seven, haven't eaten anything, and it's now five. Go eat or I'm suspending you."

"What? You can't -!"

"I can and I will if I decide you're starving yourself." Robert raised his eyebrows. "Now go eat. You can scrub in after you're done."

She stared at him, breath shortening and voice cracking. "Robert, please."

"Lizzie," he began, then stopped, looking at her for a long moment. Finally, he sighed and put an arm around her shoulders. "Come on. We're going to Doc Magoo's. We're going to sit at a table by the window, order some food, and judge everyone who walks past."

"But what if -"

"We'll turn off our pagers," he continued. "These lugheads can manage without us for that long. Got it?"

They were in the lift by now. Tears stung her eyes, and the solar flares in her head quietly flickered away and died. For all his faults, Robert could read her like a book.

And maybe she could keep the thoughts at bay if she wasn't alone.

"Come on," Robert repeated again, a little gentler, and he led her from the lift. "I'll pay, alright? You just order whatever you want, and don't think too much."

She nodded jerkily and followed him through the halls, deaf to the passing greetings from Chuny and Malik and Jerry and Susan and Carter. It was only Frank's mumbled snark that penetrated the shell and made her flinch almost imperceptibly. "That didn't take long."

Robert's reaction was quicker than hers. "Someone has to make sure she eats, and I don't see any of you volunteering," he barked.

No one else said a word as they walked out. "I'm sorry," she started to say, but he cut her off.

"It's only been a month since his funeral. If some of those morons don't see what the time's doing to you, it's their own fault. Not yours."

A month. The realization was jarring - that meant it had been five weeks since she found him.

No. Don't think, Elizabeth. She worked a tiny smile onto her face as she sat down across from Robert. "Thank you," she said softly.

He shrugged it off. "I'm not going to deal with a malpractice case against my second best surgeon."

She snorted, unable to help herself. "Second best?"

"Of course. I'm still in the room, Lizzie; it'd be just insulting to my own abilities to attribute first place to anyone else."

"Ah. I see," she rolled her eyes with a slight smirk. "Well. Thank you anyway."

He inclined his head, returning the smirk. "Don't mention it." The waitress came over to give them their menus, and when her mouth watered at just the picture on the front, she realized that perhaps she was a little hungry after all.

She covered her mouth, swallowing and hoping her stomach wouldn't start growling. "Damn," she grumbled. "I'm already salivating."

"Very attractive. Do I need to order for you?"

"No, I'll - I'll be fine."

"Eat on your own time tomorrow and you will be." Robert drummed his fingers on the table absent-mindedly.

She had to swallow again instead of respond, and by then he was already ordering. "Just a hamburger for me, please," she smiled weakly.

"She'll have a plate of fries, too," he told the waitress.

"I don't -"

"Did you eat breakfast? No? So you haven't eaten all day. Better add a chocolate shake."

"Robert!"

"Keep talking and I'll order more," he threatened.

She snapped her mouth shut, and when the waitress left she could almost swear the woman was laughing at them. "I don't really need all of that, Robert," she tried to tell him.

He gave her a warning look. "Yeah you do. You're not going to eat dinner tonight. You'll get home and feed your kid and then go to bed without eating anything yourself. Besides, I'm paying, remember? Don't waste my money, Lizzie."

._.

It wasn't until she crawled into bed that night at eleven that she realized Robert was right. She hadn't eaten since she'd gotten home. For a while, Elizabeth debated whether or not she should get up and eat something. She knew she should, and it had helped earlier to keep her from thinking - but that was when Robert was talking and scoffing at the passersby who had no idea he was pointing them out to her one by one. It would mean an escape from the phantasmagoria of nightmares she found herself in so often recently, but it wouldn't last all night. She couldn't forgo food _and_ sleep. Besides, she wasn't really that hungry, she supposed.

The dreams came quickly to steal her away from the real world and bore her back to a beach, where her daughter was walking by herself and her husband could stand on his own and the world was right.

In the morning, the ache of knowing it wasn't real would come. But for now, there were no sunspots to darken her dreams.


	3. Sometimes Runs

_A/N: Thank you to bamboo for your encouraging review! And thank you to other readers!_

**_._._**

"Very good, Mike," Elena smiled as she walked past. "Is this another character or someone you know?"

Mark didn't look up. "Just a character." The evening art classes he'd found were helping, and even though he was pretty sure all of his beginning efforts were pure rubbish (crap, he meant crap; rubbish was Elizabeth's word in her voice in his head and if he thought of her voice he'd think of her hands and her eyes and her smile and he couldn't have her in his head right now) he'd gotten better over the last three months. He finished the last little wisp of blonde curl on Ella's hair and stretched, studying his work. It was as close as memory was going to get him.

James leaned over from his place beside Mark and raised his eyebrows. "Cute little girl. Are you sure you're just making these people up? Because you're getting really, really good at them."

"I just have a... specific design in mind," he smiled tightly. He set the drawing of Ella aside and waited for Elena's next instructions.

The art teacher sat on her stool at the front of the room, setting up a clean poster board to demonstrate on. "Now that you've finished your warm-up sketches, we'll get started on our next project. We'll be working on a profile of ourselves -" She held up a photograph of herself taken from the side. "I'll take a picture of each of you, from whichever side you want, and we'll project it onto the wall and take turns tracing the outline in Sharpie. Then we'll fill the silhouette with things that describe us."

Mark's fingers twitched. That was probably the worst project he could be assigned, seeing as he'd been specifically told to reinvent himself.

Elena continued. "You can use any medium you want as long as you clean up after yourself after you leave. Alright, who's first?"

He shrank back in his chair and pretended to be busy picking shavings off his eraser. He had to figure out a way to spend the next forty-five minutes doing anything but working on this - he'd only signed up for these classes so he could have some sort of replacement for the pictures left on the wall at home, not so he could scramble to invent Michael Gregory's life.

Okay, so he'd been Michael Gregory for three months now. That didn't necessarily mean he knew anything about how to be someone who wasn't just Mark Greene with a different name.

Maybe he could get away with that, though. And in a way all this had proven to be sort of therapeutic.

Elena flashed her encouraging Latina smile, and he got up. Forty minutes left in tonight's class... he might as well get started.

._.

It was adorable, really, how they thought walls could hold him. Him! He who had spread viruses like wildfire from the comfort of his own home, who had killed men with the swipe of the enter key from the luxury of his bedroom. Of course, they knew that, so they kept him away from the computers.

But he had his ways. He'd call in a favour here, utilize a hint of blackmail there, and one way or another he'd find himself in front of a computer, right where he belonged.

At the precise moment Elena Montoya transferred a photograph of a man called "Mike Gregory" to her computer, it just so happened to be one of those blessed moments with a screen. He hadn't found any computerized data in the government files about this Dr. Greene who had testified against him, but this image matched the man he sought.

Pelant smiled to himself. Rutland, Vermont. So he wasn't dead after all.

Now that was a problem he could fix with a bit of careful planning and a lot of fun.

He opened up a new email account and began typing. _Dear Dr. Corday, I understand you're looking for someone to help around the house..._

._.

Sundays had quickly become Elizabeth's least favourite days. Not because it was her day off - that was nice, and there was always something to do - but because it meant dealing with her mother.

"Elizabeth, really," Isabelle was saying. "If you didn't want my help, you shouldn't have moved back so close to home."

Her face felt hot, and she knew she must be glaring terrifically at the older woman, but at the moment she couldn't bring herself to care very much. "You would have to know how to be a mother if you wanted to instruct me," she retorted sharply.

"And yet you came home." Isabelle folded her arms.

"No. I ran away from home." She had to stop, because she hadn't realized it was true until she said it aloud. She realized her jaw hurt from gritting her teeth, and she relaxed, standing a little straighter. "I ran away from home and I came here to remind myself that it really is possible to be even more miserable than I already was."

Her mother looked halfway between shocked and infuriated. "Elizabeth Victoria, you cannot honestly call the States your home when this is where you were born, where you grew up, where this family has come from for centuries -"

"God save the Queen, Mother. And God save me," she muttered under her breath. She crouched beside Ella, gently taking the string of pearls from her mouth and setting them aside. "Come on, baby. Let's leave Gramma alone now."

Her toddler looked up at her with wide, happy eyes. "Home?"

Elizabeth pretended she couldn't see Isabelle fuming as she lifted Ella into her arms, a rush of adrenaline fuelling the impulse into reality. "Yes, love. We're going to go home." She owed it to her daughter. She could be a better mother than she'd had.

By the end of the week they would be back in the States. Maybe not Chicago just yet - two months away wasn't nearly long enough - but she might be able to breathe again. At the very least, she reflected, Ella would never be afraid of flying, thanks to all these plane rides she'd been taking lately.

._.

His next weekly session with a screen was even better. Pelant savoured each word of the reply from the good doctor's wife, reading it in his head with the most proper English accent he could imagine. Yes, she was looking for someone to watch Ella now that she was back in the States; Robert had mentioned that? (Oh, she'd written _Dr. Romano_ of course, so formal, but she never _really_ called him that according to all the knowledge he'd gathered, and besides... first names were so much more _intimate_.) She thanked him very politely for getting in touch with her and asked if he'd be available to meet for lunch to talk before she made any final decisions.

Ooo, so it was a date - he hadn't had a date in a very long time. He must remember to look sharp.

He memorized the address in New York his new friend Elizabeth had given, made note of the day she'd asked to meet him, and deleted the email. He could erase it from the system entirely, but he doubted any of these prison guards knew how to recover it.

And if they did, well. He'd always thought the fun was in the chase. He deserved to have a bit of fun with this.

._.

It wasn't until the television woke him up that Mark realized he had fallen asleep on the couch. Still groggy from sleep, he reached for the remote to turn it off, but the news anchor's words froze him.

"...computer hacker and serial murderer Christopher Pelant, a convict on death row, managed to escape from a high-security prison yesterday. Officials have released no more information, except that if you see this man, you are to call 911 immediately -"

The picture of Pelant on the screen flickered and disappeared, replaced by a dizzying shot of a camera in a spinning chair. "Hello!" laughed a man's voice, scratchy and low. "No, don't worry. I'm not a danger to anyone, really. I just so love playing these little games, that's all... Hello, Dr. Greene. I know you're out there. Oopsy daisy, didn't do such a good job hiding after all, did you? Shh, don't worry. I won't tell anyone that you know. Oh, look, there goes the clock - midnight where you are, good doctor? A word of advice. Run, run, as fast as you can... but don't lose your little glass slipper. That's important, after all."

The screen went dark. Mark stared at it for what felt like eternity while he tried to process what he had just seen.

Then he grabbed his cell phone and hit speed dial two, because the fear was overwhelming, and there was nothing else he could do.


End file.
